


The Sun and Other Celestial Bodies

by midrashic



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Solarpunk, Genosha, M/M, Mutant Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23567029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midrashic/pseuds/midrashic
Summary: Charles, Erik, and a solarpunk utopia.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 25
Kudos: 57
Collections: X-Salon Challenge Works





	The Sun and Other Celestial Bodies

Genosha is grimier than the Mutant Propaganda posters make it out to be. The green spaces are mostly brown right now, just the beginning of flowerbuds coming out of winter, the vertical gardens bare and spriggy. Charles wheels along with the rest of the tour group shuffling onward, catches sight of the disappointment in some of their eyes. “It’s more impressive in the summer,” says Mutant Peer Erik, and grins wolfishly when no one seems to believe him. He’s in a surprisingly good mood for being a tour group leader who probably won’t see more than a handful of new recruits, mostly the wide-eyed youngsters who are eager to become a part of Genosha, thriving or not.

Mutant Peer Erik talks about shared responsibility and care for the planet, the human drive towards destructiveness, and mutant separatism with a fanatical light in his eyes that would normally be raising all sorts of alarms in the back of Charles’s mind, but although Erik’s mind is well-guarded, Charles is powerful and he can sense nothing but gripping, generous sincerity rippling from him. He takes them past the school, a low, squat building surrounded by planters and vertical hydroponics plants, with several courtyards and sunroofs to let the light in. A red-haired girl watches him solemnly from the swing set. He takes them past the greenhouse, where large, unwieldy plants like brussel sprouts and leeks wait to be harvested. Genosha has forgone the art deco aesthetic of many of its sister communities for something more functional; though the walls are sun-baked brick and adobe clay, the roads are paved, which Charles admits he appreciates.

They stop in a red-brick, but smoothly paved, square. A fountain, not purely ornamental but not purely functional either, sprays wetlands plants with foam and sparkle. Metal twists arch up with the jets of water and catch the light. There are smudges of mud on the base, muddy footprints where a child has clearly climbed into the fountain to splash around, and it, like everything about Genosha, is just a litle bit dusty, not with disuse, not with inattention, but with the hard dust of work and purpose. “We’ve reached the end of our tour,” Mutant Peer Erik says. “Any questions?”

The younglings ask questions about the nightlife. Mutant Peer Erik shrugs, saying that he’s a little old to go clubbing himself, but he knows that the youngsters have a still no one else is supposed to know about. A haggard young woman with purple streaks in her hair and sunglasses perched on top of her head asks about childcare for adopted human children. He assures her that as long as her son becomes a willing and active member of the community, he is welcome, though the uncomfortable shifting of some of the people in the tour group seems to put that into question. Charles raises his hand.

“Are there actually any children here?” he asks. “Or do you just keep the one around as a prop?”

Mutant Peer Erik smiles that sharp-tipped smile. “Why do you say that?” he asks.

“It’s the middle of the day, and I haven’t heard any children playing except for the one,” Charles says. “What is it? Having trouble attracting families? Or struggling with the fact that the growing mutant population, in spite of the boom of recent decades, mostly consists of mutant children being born to human couples?”

“They’re on a field trip to the solar farms,” Erik says. “I helped organize it. Jean stays behind because she’s telepathic and still struggling to gain control of her powers—crowds make her anxious. Don’t worry,” he says, and his grin seems dangerous now. “We all watch out for her. Even when strangers are in town, no harm could come to her.”

“Do you follow the education standards of US federal government?” Charles fires at him.

“You mean the one with the textbooks that discuss mutant history in a handful of pages at the back of the book? The ones which teach baseline human anatomy only and not even the most basic ‘this-is-your-body-on-puberty’ for kids with physical mutations? The ones that don;t even touch on the rich _human_ history of civic disobedience and environmental activism? Those standards?”

“The ones that students are tested on if they ever want to integrate with human society, yes,” Charles says. “Which, in spite of your lovely rhetoric, is a reality for many mutants, if not yourself.”

“Yes,” Erik smiles. “We do. With supplements, of course.”

“Of course,” Charles parrots back. “With a hefty side course of indoctrination about mutant supremacy, I suppose.” 

“Of course,” Erik says, but he’s grinning now, and Charles can hear the joking tone in his voice. At least, he hopes it’s joking. “What’s your name?”

“ _Dr._ Charles Xavier,” he says. “I’m a telepath.”

“How lovely to meet you,” Erik says. “Stay behind after the tour, will you?

— ⓧ —

Genosha doesn’t have coffee shops. Erik takes him to his own dwelling for tea, which is a low building that looks more like an exterior garage but at least doesn’t have stairs. As a Mutant Peer, Charles would’ve thought that Erik would be entitled to better lodgings, but Erik explains that the larger multi-room dwellings are basically reserved for the families, of which Genosha has _many,_ thank you very much. So, in spite of being a high-ranking representative of the budding mutant _barrio_ , he lives in essentially a four-hundred-foot-square studio apartment on the ground floor, with the door tucked away on a dusty, narrow side street that Charles’s wheelchair can fit down, but barely. Erik sets out tea in front of him and smiles. “I’m guessing by the honorific that you have a successful career in the human world,” he says.

Charles shrugs. Successful enough, though most of the promotions and great strides he made were before he came out as a mutant. Now he does… other things. “And you? Who were you before you came here?”

“I was an engineer and metalworker,” Erik says. “I still am. The fountain in the main square—it’s mine.”

“It’s beautiful,” Charles says, surprised. Erik shrugs.

“It’s functional,” he says. “That’s my mutation. Metallokinesis.” He smiles. Out of the public eye, his smile is softer, less like the edge of a knife and more like a slice of the moon. “I designed the solar power grid for the city as well, and helped build them. Others did the heavy lifting, though. Manufacturing—that’s not my forte.”

“I thought you were a Mutant Peer.”

Erik shrugs. “That just means I listen to the concerns of my neighborhood and then vote on the Quiet Council. Anarchic democracy in action,” he says. “Everyone still has day jobs. Emma—you might know her as the outside spokesman for Genosha—she’s a counselor.”

Charles blinks. He actually knows Emma Frost; they’d grown up in the same circles, and he remembers a cold, unblinking girl who’d watched Cain push him around without a flicker of emotion in her eyes. He can’t imagine her helping other people get through their pain. “A counselor of what?”

“A lot of kids come here with learning disabilities,” Erik says. “ _Disabilities_ because the human system has disabled them, because it’s not set up to accommodate their unique needs. And a lot of mutants—kids and adults—come here traumatized. This isn’t a separatist colony, whatever you might believe, Charles. For most people, it’s a refuge, a last resort. A place to hide out when assimilation has failed them many times over.”

“You bill it as a mutant utopia.”

“Do you know what utopia means?” Erik asks.

“From the Greek,” Charles says. “ _No-place.”_

“The people here have no place to go,” Erik says. “We might as well build it without the mistakes of our human forerunners.”

The solar panels in Genosha are unique because they are transparent, and so they function like skylights. Sunlight streams down from the solar panels set in the ceiling, and illuminates Erik’s face, and for a moment Charles is struck dumb by him, by the light dancing across his cheekbones, by the shadow falling across his expression, by the peace in it, the way that a mind so intense, vibrating so strongly with what could be rage, has relaxed into lines of serenity in his own home.

“I won’t ask you to stay,” Erik says gently. “But if you did, what would you want to do?”

“Teach,” Charles blurts out. “Surely—perhaps you could use a science teacher?” It’s been so long since he was able to get up in front of a classroom and just—do what he does best. It was the price of coming out, he knows. He’d evaluated the odds and accepted them. But he misses it, and until his heart jumped at Erik’s question, he hadn’t even realized how _much_ he’d missed it.

“Hmm.” Erik hides his expression behind his coup of grassy green tea—a local blend that tastes a little like marijuana but also like the way orange trees smell. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Wouldn’t like you to indoctrinate the children.”

“I—me?!” Charles splutters. “Indoctrinate the children?!”

“With your assimilationist pro-governmental bullshit,” Erik grins.

In the distance, Charles can hear the chatter of a mob clambering out of the electromagneto-trolleys, and for the first time Genosha seems awash with the sound of children. Dozens of them, if he’s any judge, and he relaxes, not having realized how much it was bothering him that he was wheeling around a residential neighborhood without being able to hear children. Erik is watching him with a knowing glance. Charles wonders when he stopped thinking of him as _Mutant Peer_ Erik.

“Okay,” Charles says, “I’m in.”

— ⓧ —

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Charles whispers, as moonlight spills through the solar panels—now just skylights—and pools over Erik’s bedsheets, mussed as they are, tangled through Charles’s unmoving legs. Erik stands by the window, smoking. Bad habits exist even in paradise.

The last few months have been—idyllic. Teaching again. Getting to know Erik over long conversations. Joining the Quiet Council. Dealing with issues like bike traffic zones and curriculum building, being immersed in the quiet magic of _growing_ a community, from the ground up. He used to watch the gardeners on the estate coax the apple trees into bloom and revel in their red-gold magic, and this is very much the same, this is blowing on a seed and watching it bloom, the way that one mutant with twigs for hair can do. They all use their powers to better the world they share—he’s seen Erik lift solar panels into the air to fit them into new roofs after Rictor shapes the earth into new dwellings, he’s seen people whisper fruits and vegetables to life, seen people with more decorative mutations light up the night with music and fireworks at the communal feast each day—but they use their _skills_ too. He’s seen Erik whiling away long nights poring over blueprints for the next generation of the electromagneto-trolley. He’s nodded off during Quiet Council meetings of how to divvy up the next acquisition of land into gardens and dwellings and amenities. He’s championed the building of a swimming pool.

And what he’s about to say will end it all.

“What is it?” Erik asks, quiet, still facing out the window onto the narrow street as though he can see something in the shadows.

“I—” Charles chokes on the word. “I was sent here. By the CIA. To gather information on Genosha, to assess your strategic weaknesses—so that—so that when the governor sent down the order, we would be able to remove you from the land. Swiftly. Painlessly. And… I was sent to trap and find the mutant terrorist Magneto.”

“Former mutant terrorist,” Erik murmurs.

“I don’t know why I agreed,” Charles says frantically, not able to see Erik’s expression in the twilight, not sure why he’s confessing at all except that he cannot stand it any longer, cannot bear the quiet pressing in on him when Erik smiles and lays and hand on his shoulder and kisses him like a drowning man drinks down air. “I thought. I thought you were dangerous, I thought you were going to kill someone—but—as far as I can tell Magneto’s not even _here_ , and—I stopped passing information months ago, but I got the call anyway. They’re going to strike tomorrow.”

“Magneto is here,” Erik says.

And then he goes over to a chest at the foot of the bed, a chest that Charles, at Erik’s request, has never opened, props it open, and pulls out a helmet. An instantly recognizable helmet.

“Erik,” Charles gasps.

“I love Genosha because it is a place of second chances,” Erik says. “You can come here as a terrorist, bleeding and angry, and be given a home. You can come here as a spy, hiding yourself away from the world, and be given a home.” He puts the helm down and sits on the bed, and Charles should be terrified, he should be quaking, Magneto, the most dangerous man alive, sitting on his bed having just found out he was a spy sent to undermine mutant paradise, but Erik is looking at him with those soft, green-blue eyes, and he _can’t._ If this is how he dies, so be it. Erik smiles at him, that dangerous smile from so long ago that Charles fell in love with. “Emma scans the minds of newcomers for ill intent, you know. She couldn’t get a grip on you, but the woman who dropped you off—MacTaggart. You should tell her that CIA telepathic training isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He laughs. “Or don’t. It’s very useful.”

“So you knew,” Charles says dully. “You knew what I was all along.”

“Yes.”

“So was this…” he gestures between them. He feels the exertion of long love-making deep in his muscles, in his bones, and he clings to the feeling, the way Erik had gasped into his ear, the way Erik had looked at him with such—not fire but water, deep and enduring as the ocean, capable of wearing away anything given enough time. “Was it all a trick?”

Erik is silent for a long moment. “Was it for you?”

 _“No,”_ Charles says vehemently.

“No,” Erik says quietly. “Nor for me.”

Charles closes his eyes and for the first time in a long time _opens_ his mind. And he can feel Erik, as well as he can feel his heartbeat when he’s pressed against him in sleep, Erik whose mind no longer churns with the rage of the mutant terrorist Magneto but ebbs and flows like the sea, with love and love and love, love for his people and love for what he’s built here and love for—for Charles.

“Even though I’ve betrayed you?” Charles gasps.

“We might kick you off the Council,” Erik says, “but this is your home too, now, Charles.” But he’s smiling when he says it, and Charles knows in a rush that no one is kicking him off the Council—he’s the only one who can get the meetings to end at appropriate times. Charles stuffs a fist in his mouth to muffle a sob. Erik wraps his arms around him and he can feel his heartbeat and feel his mind, twin points of connection, and he revels in the sensation of being entirely intertwined with someone else, a luxury spies can’t afford. But he’s no longer a spy now. Now he’s just Charles, the way Magneto is now just Erik, and they forgive each other, like this place has forgiven them.

“It’s no-place,” Erik murmurs. “Where better to seek forgiveness for the unforgivable?”

— ⓧ —

The soldiers come at night.

Erik is standing at the boundary of Genosha and the outside world, his hands on his hips. He’s not wearing his helm, but now that Charles knows the truth, that posture, that strength, is unmistakable. Moira pulls up in a black, unmarked car, and steps outside. She frowns when she sees Charles sat next to Erik, his hands folded neatly in his lap. “Charles,” she says, “you’ve done your job. Get out of there.”

Charles says nothing.

Moira sighs. “I was afraid of this,” she says. “Charles—you’ve been there too long, all right? Just come home. Come home and we’ll talk it over.”

“Moira,” Charles says, “I am home.”

Moira purses her lips and turns to Erik. “Mutant Peer Erik, I presume,” she says. “You have ten minutes to get everyone squatting on these lands out, or we turn the power out. I understand you have a medical center on these grounds. Make a show of good faith, and we’ll keep the lights long enough for you to evacuate everyone.”

Erik pretends to think, then purrs, “No.”

Moira’s lips thin. “You’re killing people.”

“ _You’re_ killing people,” Erik says. “Every day, with your prejudice and your hatred, your hate crimes and your institutional indifference. We are saving them.”

Moira sighs and gestures. “Cut off the power,” she says.

Outside, the lights go off.

But the lights of Genosha keep burning.

Erik grins, a knife-sliver of a smile, as behind him, people begin to come out, to flank him. Children kept indoors, but their parents, wielding nothing but their bare hands and their confidence in Genosha, gather behind him, staring at Moira, staring at the agents she’s brought, who are beginning to look like they don’t have nearly the strength in numbers they thought they did. Erik smiles. “We keep burning,” he says.

Charles takes his hand. “We keep burning,” he repeats, and faces down the world, with just love in his pocket and a thousand hearts beating behind him in time. Thump. Thump. Thump.

And that’s how it begins.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for X-Salon's [AU April bingo](https://x-salon.tumblr.com/post/614323198809473024/): Solarpunk. I [tumble](https://midrashic.tumblr.com). If you like my work, buy me a coffee. And come join us on the [X-Men X-Traordinaire discord](https://discordapp.com/invite/7HyhZ5R)! 
> 
> Thanks [InsertSthMeaningful](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful) for helping me out after I was blocked on this for _weeks._ You rock.
> 
> My comment policy boils down to one thing: **Please comment.** You. Yes, you in particular. If you would like examples, a simple heart emoji or “+kudos” now that the multiple kudos function has been disabled are hugely appreciated. Your comment does not have to be profound. Your comment does not have to be long. If all you have the energy for is the heart emoji, i appreciate that much more than a kudos or a bookmark. A kudos is not interchangeable with a short comment that says “great job!” or something similar. I always respond to comments. If you feel like your comments mean less than those from people I regularly interact with, you’re wrong; comments mean more from a stranger. I would prefer a “please update” to no comment. I would prefer a short comment to no comment. I would prefer criticism to no comment. Comments keep writers writing and in the fandoms you love. **Please comment.**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sunset, Sunrise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24743635) by [IreneADonovan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneADonovan/pseuds/IreneADonovan)




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